by Jane Austen

"It is not very wonderful that with all their promising talents and early information, they [Maria and Julia] should be entirely deficient in less common acquirements of self-knowledge, generosity, and humility"

• Austen’s style, irony and antithesis
• Importance of place: Mansfield, Portsmouth, Antigua, London
• Education, bildungsroman, Cinderella myth
• Parental responsibility
• Characterisation: the older generation & the younger generation
• Arrival of the Crawfords

• Introduction: main ideas in brief
• Consideration of Austen’s style and use of language
• Characters
• Themes
• Conclusion: the clash between the values of Mansfield and the ‘decadent’ Crawfords

"Her [Mary Crawford’s] doctrine includes the notion that there are no values but material ones, and that the gratification of the self is the only conceivable goal."

Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and The War of Ideas (Oxford, 1975)

Always use quotations judiciously to support your argument

Decadent adj [back-formation fr. decadence] (1837)
1: marked by decay or decline 2: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of the decadents 3: characterised by or appealing to self-indulgence

Bildungsroman noun
(German: "novel of formative education"), class of novel in German literature that deals with the formative years of an individual.

Definitions from Encyclopædia Britannica

"Fanny’s ignorance when she arrives at Mansfield as a frightened ten year old is signified by her inability ‘to put a map of Europe together’"

Edward W. Said Culture and Imperialism (London, 1993)

by N. R. Evans

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